How long to keep gift batches

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Faith Murray
Faith Murray ✭
Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
Hello All! Question: how long should an organization keep record of its batches in RE? I know gift records stay forever; and our paper copies are only kept for 7 years; but under BATCH, we still have every batch ever made, all the way back to Batch #1 created in 1999. This means we have more than 3800 gift batches in our Batch folder.



What are the advantages/disadvantages to keeping batch records or deleting them after they reach 7 years old? What is best practice in this regards? Trying to clean up the database, and wondering what all is extraneous.



Thanks in advance!
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  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Whew.  How long you keep will depend on your policies and procedures.  There may be some reason you keep all forever though I can't imagine why.  Have you ever had to go back to look at any?



    Our batches are only kept for preceding year.  I deleted all batches and batch queries for 2013.  As our audit for 2014 has been completed I could delete all for 2014 I suppose but I just have it as part of my end of year clean up.  There's nothing I'm aware of that says batches need to be kept at all. I know of orgs that don't keep batches at all.  There's always option to query gifts by batch #.  We also have a hard copy of batch reports that is kept for preceding year.



    That just what we do. 
  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Knew there was a thread from a discussion of this topic:

    https://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/147/15903?post_id=50297#p50297



    There's also one titled Batch - Mass Delete if you don't want to do it one-by-one. :)
  • Faith Murray
    Faith Murray ✭
    Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    No, I have never needed to go back to any batches. Everything I need has been found in the gift record itself, or the paper copies which we keep for 7 years (which include the check copies, etc., for auditors).



    Thanks for the other thread, very helpful!
  • Nicole S
    Nicole S ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 3 Name Dropper Photogenic
    I have found it useful, but not forever, to keep batches.  I've been able to dig and get to the bottom of some issues using the original batch.  For instance, a donor had a name change but the previous name wasn't saved.  So I can't find the old donor in the database.  I was able to go to the original batch and find that the donor had used a different last name and I was then able to solve the puzzle.  The new batch folders make it easier to get old batches out of the way.  Personally, I like to keep for a couple of years.  It's a nice snapshot to have.
  • Jennifer Lange
    Jennifer Lange ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Photogenic
    LOVE MASS DELETE!!!!! In Batch > TOOLS > DELETE MULTIPLE BATCHES.  Yey!!!

     
  • Aldera Chisholm
    Aldera Chisholm ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 2 Photogenic
    What are some of the reasons you may have heard for keeping longer than an audit year? We have never deleted any, but I think in our case it's simply because no one has had the time to go do clean-up. I believe it's on the "Someday when I have time" list, which we all know how that works out. So, I'm just curious. :)
  • Rachel Slager 2
    Rachel Slager 2 ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Photogenic
    Keeping it for at least the immediate preceeding year is useful and then mass delete, as other users stated.  Even after a batch is deleted, you can still query by Batch #.



    Reasons to keep a batch:  if a batch gift entry was made in error, you can delete all the gifts in a certain batch, but the batch still exists, so you can make changes and then re-commit without any re-entry.  This is an uncommon issue, but I've had a few occassions where errors were made on gift type, or installment schedules, and mainly on hard credit. 
  • Michael Langley
    Michael Langley ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 1 Photogenic
    We do not keep our batches in RE.  In fact we delete them as they are commited.  Never seen a need to keep them since we have the gift record tied to the batch number.  We have the paper backup and we keep them for 7 years.  
  • Gracie Schild
    Gracie Schild ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 2 Photogenic
    We actually keep the paper "log" and the batches in RE until after the audit for that year is done, just in case.  We need them "right away" for the work/studies to "attach" the Media.  That's the fastest way to "click through" to the constituent and attach the PDF of their check or the credit card printout. We also need the queries that are created from committing the batches for creating the adknowledgement letters, but we could delete those sooner, I suppose.  It's such a low priority that I just keep the different areas on my "Purge List", which I work on while on hold or listening to someone really boring on the phone!
  • Daniel Noga 2
    Daniel Noga 2 ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Photogenic

    Nicole S:

    I have found it useful, but not forever, to keep batches.  I've been able to dig and get to the bottom of some issues using the original batch.  For instance, a donor had a name change but the previous name wasn't saved.  So I can't find the old donor in the database.  I was able to go to the original batch and find that the donor had used a different last name and I was then able to solve the puzzle.  The new batch folders make it easier to get old batches out of the way.  Personally, I like to keep for a couple of years.  It's a nice snapshot to have.

    Ditto here as far as usefulness of keeping old batch records. I don't know how much server space these records take up, but I've never been in a situation where space was needed so sorely, and the practice at every org I have worked for has been to keep them, because why not? Even if you can still look things up in your paper backups or using query, it's just easier to open the batch itself up, no? This is especially true if you know where to look.


    The name change example is one I have dealt with myself, and you just never know how far into the future that sort of thing might be useful. There's no way to guess or foresee it. As long as it's not taking up a lot of resources, it seems like more trouble than it's worth to go out of your way to delete them.

  • John Budzien
    John Budzien ✭
    Ninth Anniversary Photogenic First Reply
    We converted over to RE about a year and a half ago.  We still have all the batches on file.  Every month I simply "organize categories" and create a new folder (June 2016, etc.), so they live on file until we finalize a policy on it.  It has been handy to be able to go back and check on a few old gifts, but this is rare, and I have only had to do it once or twice to verify query results which were questionable.


    We also keep paper copies of the batch confirmation report and batch validation report attached to the other documentation that arrives with the donations (the occasional correspondence, etc.).

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